Topic Videos
Mean and Median Household Income
- Level:
- AS, A-Level, IB
- Board:
- AQA, Edexcel, OCR, IB, Eduqas, WJEC
Last updated 25 Sept 2020
The mean and the median are the two averages required in the A level Economics exam syllabus. This video looks at mean and median household income for the UK.
Mean household income is averageincome per household. The mean income value answers the question: “If income would be equally distributed to all people, how much would everyone earn?”
The mean does not reflect the underlying inequality in a data set of household incomes
Median household income is the income level at the midpoint of all households ranked (arranged) by their income. The median answers the question: “What does the person earn who earns exactly more than 50% and less than 50% of the population?”
We tend to use the median when the data is skewed and there are outliers for example with super-high incomes that tends to drag up the mean value.
Mean household disposable income in the UK was £35,600 in 2019
Median household disposable income in the UK was £29,600 in 2019
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